How to access wireframe mode?

[DEATH eVADER]

The title really says it all, which is to say, if accessing the console command prompt, what is the command for accessing wire frame, because I am interested to see what polygon culling techniques Valve have implemented.

This is probably in the wrong forum, but I would like some help

 

[Dekstar]

sv_cheats 1
mat_wireframe 1.
their only real polygon culling techniques are using leaves to chop their maps up into sections. This is taking my information from CSS though, so I don't know if they updated it for Half-life 2.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

sv_cheats 1
mat_wireframe 1.
their only real polygon culling techniques are using leaves to chop their maps up into sections. This is taking my information from CSS though, so I don't know if they updated it for Half-life 2.

So they are not using any techniques to cull polygons that are not in direct line of sight? Thats a shame, I think polygonal detail of ingame props and characters seem to have a negative impact on performance if that is the case.

Question: What is the method that Crytek are using for polygon culling?

 

[Dekstar]

So they are not using any techniques to cull polygons that are not in direct line of sight? Thats a shame, I think polygonal detail of ingame props and characters seem to have a negative impact on performance if that is the case.

Question: What is the method that Crytek are using for polygon culling?

Well their engine is newer, and so their techniques are more advanced. As far as I know from what I've seen from one of the developer vids, they basically have dynamic culling through things like mountains and buildings. There's no real problem, except that I assume the calculations needed to determine whether something's cullable (buildings for instance could be knocked down, thus altering a cull area) require a higher spec processor, but it most likely relieves your graphics card from too much strain. This is probably part of why the specs needed are so great.

Valve's route with leaves however is designed to be scalable to older hardware, because the culls are baked directly into the maps when compiling and are determined by your location. Unfortunately, map culling has it's own problems like wallhacks etc. That are solved by dynamic culling, but then the engine wouldn't be as good on old hardware as it is if it used a high-end technique like that.

As a side-note; VALVe may very well have implicated dynamic culling if they had more open outdoor environments. They're both double-edged swords when it comes to differing environments. While large environments are designed to have a large sight-range, dynamic culling would bring a noticeable increase in FPS, while map culling would seem archaic in an environment like that, because you'd never be able to cull without having buildings/models pop-up into view to save RAM (One of the problems with Oblivion, I fear). This is why Crysis has dynamic culling, so anything obscured by a mountain, say (which are common in the game) are culled to save RAM.
But the Source engine is designed for close-quarters mapping, where your view-distance is never actually that long (and far away obvjects are substituted for low-poly objects in the 3D skybox), and so developers can basically run through a level, and say "well at this position - which the player has to pass through, he won't have a need for seeing this building over here, so let's cull it". so both have advantages, and comparing them without taking into account the engine's needs isn't a good idea.


EDIT: I'm pretty sure that info's right, but if someone like Angry-Lawyer or Pi Mu Rho want to come and correct me on anything, that'd be good.

 

[Beerdude26]

No, that's pretty good. This is also the reason why the Source Engine isn't too great with open areas.

 

[Dekstar]

No, that's pretty good. This is also the reason why the Source Engine isn't too great with open areas.

Which will hopefully change with EP2.